Judge Dismisses Valerie Plame's lawsuit against the Bush Administration

Full Story: (all two lines of it)

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.

This was done because Valerie Plame was not protected under the Intelligence Agents Identity Act. The act protects active agents that are currently covert. It was not intended to protect paper pushers sitting at their desk in Washington, which is what Plame was doing. And furthermore - it was not intended to protect nepatism. Which Plame is guilty of doing.

Here's a more complete story from Huffington Post.

"The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and
attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory, " Bates wrote. "But there
can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as
that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar
foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope
of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials."

Robert Novak (the instigator of this entire YUCKY thing) was on Hugh Hewitt's program on July 16th. Here's an exchange from the conversation (highlighted portions mine):

HH: Let me ask you, I’m bored silly by the Plame affair, Robert
Novak, but I do have one question about your opinion: Why was Armitage not charged if Valerie Plame’s identity was a secret, and Patrick Fitzgerald was investigating its leak?

RN: Because there was no crime committed under the Intelligence Agents
Identity Act. That bill was passed, Hugh, to protect intelligence agents
overseas from being outed by left wing forces, and then marked for
assassination. It was really a deadly serious act, nothing like somebody sitting
in Langley in the CIA headquarters as Mrs. Wilson was, doing analysis. There was
no crime committed under that act, and therefore, he was not charged. And so that is the whole problem with the Libby indictment. He was charged
for obstructing justice when there was no underlying crime committed, or allegedly committed.

HH: Why did Fitzgerald, do you think, in your opinion, continue on with the
investigation once Armitage had revealed it was he who was the leaker?

RN: Because…you know, when he entered the case, he was told that Armitage was
the leaker. That information was given to him, because it had been known for
three weeks before he was named as special prosecutor. And therefore, I think
the Justice Department should have bitten the bullet and taken care of him
itself. Why he did not reveal that is something that is in the mysteries of the
whole, strange relationship of special prosecutors. It is very difficult for
them to say no crime was committed, you’ve named me for nothing, and I’ve
established a staff for nothing. But that’s in fact what he should have
done.

It's revolting how our justice system was used by Plame and her husband for their own political gains. And monetary gains. I'd like to see how much money they made off their TV appearances and book deals an oh I bet someone somewhere has the movie rights. Joe Wilson finds himself to be something of a political icon and leader ... because it was big news the other day when he came out in support of Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign.

Does anyone really think that Scooter Libby should have been indicted for this? Why did the White House do such a crappy job? With this and the Justice firings? Those justices serve at the pleasure of the President, just as every lawyer has done in that same position for decades. Clinton fired the whole lot of them. Which I guess, in hindsight, is what the current administration should have done.

Their PR their entire second term has been a living nightmare. I don't think PR would fix all of their problems ... but a stronger voice than who's speaking now would have been nice. Especially surrounding this whole PlameGate mess.

But then you come to the chicken or the egg. If the press won't report good news for the White House ... hows does the White House defend itself? I dunno ... I find it very hard to believe that every newspaper out their is the New York Times who so willingly sacrifices morals and ethics.

I want this whole thing to go away ... and for Joe Wilson to be seen for the liar (see HERE) and nepotist he is. And his wife the same. Her obstruction of justice was the same as Libby's ... and yet she walks away without a scratch on her record. At some point we are too opt to trust the word of supposed "victims" and we villanize the "perpetrators" before any evidence is brought to light.

Innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately ... this is no longer proving to be true.

The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have
several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of
twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

This is no pat on the back for the Administration. If the man's own stupid report contradicted his own stupid words -- how in the royal blazes did this get as far as it did?!

And just so you know I'm not doing this just now ... I talked about this WaPo article when it first came out ... and I talked about this in the beginning HERE, and HERE.